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Topic: Suggestions for Billing Software (Read 4166 times)

1. provider left a large practice to open his own office2. provider sees patients in home or nursing home and doesn't have an office location.

Whenever we meet with a practice that has a PM we ALWAYS use theirs if that is what they want. We have never made a provider switch to our system. We had two times where we did not want to renew the contract because the providers PM system was so bad we did not want to work in it. The work took three to four times longer because the system was so bad. In one of those two the provider switched her PM system (but she purchased a new one, she didn't switch to ours) because she also did not like the system and it became non compliant (HIPAA). The other we just parted ways amicably.

I have one who fits # 2 on your list, he has no office, just goes to ALF, NH, SNF facilities, and patient homes.

Out of curiosity, was the bad PM system Intivia/Insync? That is hands down the worst EMR/PM software I have ever dealt with. I wouldn't wish that software on my worst enemy. They are clearly based "elsewhere", and have the worst support and integration/set up ever.

No, the bad system was MedFX. The other bad system was Office Ally's free PM system. I have not worked with intivia/Insync. We try to work in all systems but occasionally we find one that is just so difficult that it is not cost effective to keep the account. It is not common, but it happens!

Michele and Kristen, Thank you much for your input. I can understand both views on the subject. Using the practice's PM software will definitely reduce a biller's overhead which is great. Question to Michele, how do you manage multiple PM systems? I don't believe all providers are using the same one. Will the biller have to become a multiple PM user, navigating between the different software? how about training and support?

Question to Michele, how do you manage multiple PM systems? I don't believe all providers are using the same one. Will the biller have to become a multiple PM user, navigating between the different software? how about training and support?

We have 10 people here total. When we take on a provider with a new system I always start it. I have a bachelor's degree in computer programming and it comes easy to me to learn new systems. Once I learn a system I train one or two others in the office so we have multiple people who are fluent. Some of our employees are good at learning new systems and being able to work in more than one. Some are not. We use our employees strengths. As for training and support we either contact the company directly and utilize their training materials. Or someone in the office gives us a quick training session. Many times I just figure things out myself. There are usually tutorial videos available. Often the provider has support so we can also contact the company directly as well.

I was just reading an old topic thread, "Medical Billing Software Reviews" and Michele mentioned HIPAA compliance... "the provider switched her PM system (but she purchased a new one, she didn't switch to ours) because she also did not like the system and it became non compliant (HIPAA)."

I consider myself a newbie even though I've worked (part-time) in Dr's offices doing front office and billing for 17-18 years, mainly Medicare up until 2015. My husband is an LCSW and decided to leave his salaried job and expand his small private psychotherapy practice to full time. Then he went into a doctorate program so I took over his managed care billing. He didn't have PM software so we just created a spreadsheet using Excel. I use Office Ally and Optum to submit claims. Long story short, I now have two other therapist colleagues of his that I bill for who also didn't have their own PM, so I've been using Excel for them too. Now I want to expand my billing business, ideally to have 10 clients at most.

Am I being non compliant by using Excel? If so, from what I've read it seems cloud based would not be cost-effective for a small operation like mine. Maybe Lytec as Michele suggests?

What you are utilizing for your husband's practice might be practical but might not be practical if you plan to start a business.

Is there a reason why you feel you would need to purchase/lease/contract with a PM solution to open a business? Many don't today. You can simply utilize the clients existing PM solution to work. I'm all for free..but you get what you pay for. With your husband's business you are probably doing a lot more work than you need to if you had a good PM solution to do it all, MOST practices (small, medium or large) do utilize a good PM system to do it all without the need of added work. That would be the whole idea of outsourcing so you might want to consider that if your going to start your own business.

I believe the issue is that none of the three clients (her husband plus the two colleagues) have a PM system so using theirs is not an option. I don't believe you are breaking any HIPAA rules as long as the data is secure, but it doesn't seem like the most practical way to keep track of things. If you are going to stick to solo practitioners you obviously want to keep your cost down. But as you grow your current system may not be feasible. Lytec has a monthly fee option with a cloud based set up (kind of) that might work better for you. It is unlimited providers and they charge per user. If you don't want to invest a lot up front this might work better. Personally for us, the monthly fee isn't feasible because we have 11 employees.

If you are interested we work with a Lytec reseller called SMG systems. You could call for a quote and demo. We get absolutely nothing for referring people, we just like them. But if you do call, be sure to mention our name. Sometimes they will throw in a little something for people we refer.

Am I being non compliant by using Excel? If so, from what I've read it seems cloud based would not be cost-effective for a small operation like mine. Maybe Lytec as Michele suggests?

Using Excel on the cloud would not be HIPAA compliant at all, I suppose if you wanted to take the extra steps to encrypt but store only locally you could do that. I wouldn't utilize Excel as a PM solution at all as it would be extremely inefficient for a billing company aside from not being compliant if the sheets contain any PHI.

Using Excel on the cloud would not be HIPAA compliant at all, I suppose if you wanted to take the extra steps to encrypt but store only locally you could do that. I wouldn't utilize Excel as a PM solution at all as it would be extremely inefficient for a billing company aside from not being compliant if the sheets contain any PHI.

Good point. I assumed that the Excel was local only which is how we have ours. I agree though, I would think it's very inefficient so as you grow you should look at other options.

Thank you, Michele and PMRNC. My excel and other billing data is not cloud based, it's local and stored only on an external hard drive. I can already see how it would not be efficient as my business grows. The only other practitioners that I have spoken to use Practice Mate on Office Ally or just enter CMS-1500 claims on O.A. through the Service Center option.

The only other practitioners that I have spoken to use Practice Mate on Office Ally or just enter CMS-1500 claims on O.A. through the Service Center option.

You can work with that with your experience to start, it would be a better option than a spread sheet system and if the system(s) are setup with the client already, why make them do a backwards conversion to your system when they should move forward not backwards. While I will say that Practice Mate and Office Alley are not the best solution, they work ok for many small practices so why not utilize THEIR systems and save yourself the headache? Later if you find it necessary give them some software suggestions and let them make the choice down the road. My favorite saying is "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".